Column: You probably think you’re a good person. But would your actions in the time of Trump impress Elijah Cummings?

Members of Congress and invited guests attend a memorial service for Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Thursday, Oct. 24. The congressman and civil rights champion died Oct. 17, at age 68, of complications from long-standing health issues. (Matt McClain/AP)

In the days since House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., died Oct. 17, I’ve found myself returning again and again to a particular question he raised at the conclusion of a hearing in February.

“When we’re dancing with the angels," he said, "the question will be asked, ‘In 2019, what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact?’ ”

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Cummings, whose funeral is Friday in Baltimore, was directly addressing witness Michael Cohen, former lawyer and confidant of President Donald Trump, but indirectly speaking to all of us.

Whether you believe in a final, spiritual judgment or just the judgment of history as applied by your descendants, how will you account for what you said and did when a reckless, ignorant, thoroughly dishonest president degraded our standing in the world, flouted the Constitution and threatened the institutions that keep power in check?

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Did you enable him by cheering his assaults on freedom of the press, excusing his thousands of lies as mere jokes or exaggerations and forgiving his embrace of the world’s most evil tyrants?

Did you make excuses for him by offering misleading comparisons to isolated acts of mainstream political figures?

Did you buy into and advance the notion that the impeachment process was somehow unfair or even unconstitutional and that career Republicans and other public servants who stood up to Trump were “human scum”?

Did you maintain a discreet, uncomfortable silence at his trampling of norms and values because tax cuts and the appointment of conservative judges were worth it to you?

Did you simply find yourself so overwhelmed, depressed and numbed by the daily outrages delivered by Twitter and celebrated by Fox News that you did your best to tune it all out and focus on other matters?

Or, regardless of party or political philosophy, did you say, as Cummings said during his eight-minute, off-the-cuff address to Cohen, “We are better than this. We really are. As a country, we are so much better than this”?

Did you speak up and speak out?

Did you refuse to accept as “the new normal” a foul-mouthed, impulsive, mendacious cartoon villain of a president whose only advantage for Republicans over a conventional, well-behaved conservative is that he ginned up so much outrage on the left?

Did you remain true to the principles and values you espoused in, oh, say, 2011 when the idea of Trump as president was a laugh line at the White House Correspondents Dinner?

Did you refuse to fall victim to Trump fatigue and call out warnings when each new line was crossed? When the White House thumbed its nose at congressional oversight authority? When Trump branded a clause in the Constitution “phony” because it prevents him from making a buck off the presidency? When Trump declared victory after our humiliating and destructive betrayal of the Kurds in Syria?

No matter how this all turns out or who’ll do the asking, someday we’ll all have to answer the 2019 question.

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Meanwhile, speaking of good rhetorical questions, here are a few more words to which I’ve recently found myself returning again and again — a passage from Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders’ speech at a campaign rally in New York City last Saturday:

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“Are you willing to stand together and fight for those people who are struggling economically in this country? Are you willing to fight for young people drowning in student debt even if you’re not? Are you willing to fight to ensure that every American has health care even if you have good health care? Are you willing to fight for frightened immigrant neighbors even if you are native born? Are you willing to fight for a future for generations of people that have not even been born but are entitled to live on a planet that is healthy and habitable?”

I have mixed feelings about Sanders. Parts of his agenda are too far left even for me, and I worry about his electability in an election where moderate, swing voters will be so important. But, like the late Elijah Cummings, he certainly does ask the right questions.